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Sunday, March 30, 2014

Bye Bye San Jose, Hello Kaloocan

Bye Bye San Jose :( 4 and a half months here and now this place just feels like home. Its weird thinking I'll have to pack up and start all over again tomorrow! I really don't want to leave this area I love the people here, and especially the members, sooooo much! They've been so kind to me even though I was new and struggling with the language. Guaranteed no kindness like this sort can be fold across all of America, I've seen members willing to starve just to have the "honor" of feeding the missionaries. I feel like in America people are often like, "Ah man who invited the missionaries, this is family time", but here if you're having a birthday party or any celebration its like the highest honor for the missionaries to attend haha. Having not experienced any other part of the Philippines yet I can't say for certain, but I really think this will always be my favorite area. I feel like I became a man here, I really hope that someday I'll be able to return to San Jose!

As for transfers...I did not see what happened coming at all! I really thought I was going to transfer out to Baliwag (the far province part of our mission), but instead I will transfer to Kaloocan (the most city na city part of our mission). More than that...I will be companions with Elder Lindley, one of my batch! Two Americans, neither of which have been speaking Tagalog for 6 months yet, companions in one of the hardest areas in the mission.

From what I've heard it usually takes about a year to get comfortable with the language so maybe President thought that if we put our 6 months together that makes a year. lol Pray for us.

About Kaloocan, its the hottest, most flooded, dirtiest, and dangerous part in our mission. No sisters allowed in the Kaloocan Zone. Needless to say I'm pumped, this is where all the magic happens. The stories, the dangers, the thrills, Kaloocan baby here I come! I've heard stories of missionaries having to swim just to get home because the floods come up to their necks during tag-ulan. Crime? Poverty like no-other? Cheap fake goods? Pollution so bad you have a higher chance of lung cancer than smoking? Of course, its the city, anything goes.

For whatever reason I suppose the President has a tremendous amount of trust in Elder Lindley and I to put us together so young! I told him that I can't promise outstanding results or a record of perfect teaching but I can promise that we are going to just work our butts off everyday and we're going to be obedient so that we can qualify for the Spirit to teach our lessons. All I know is that any success that we might find in Kaloocan will be 100% the Lord's doing and all we're gonna do is work hard and pray. I'm very excited and a little nervous about the upcoming transfer but it should be a lot of fun and certainly a challenge.

Truly there's no rest for the weary, I thought perhaps that after the things I had to deal with this last transfer I would get it easy in the next one. But nope, quite the contrary happened, apparently the issues and trials I had to endure were merely building blocks to get to this point. However, I'm much more excited for this task because I know Elder Lindley is a stud missionary and I can't imagine we'll have any problems working with each other haha.

Come what may and love it...Kaloocan in the Summer!! Nothing worse, nothing better :)